As a Realtor...I always worry about getting shot thru the door of a house I'm trying to enter...

Today, 20 years in the business and I've never been so close.

Investor client wanted to see a condo in a crappy condo complex north-ish Dallas. The listing agent assured me the tenant knew I was coming at 9am. He said if the tenant wasn't home to use the code to get in the door. Arrived with my client and knocked 4x then used the code and entered yelling REALTOR.

Turned on the lights. It was dark inside. Was inside the living room and saw a Bible laid out on the sofa so that's at least a good sign. Figured the tenant left so we could show. Nobody appeared to be home. Client and I are talking and then I hear a stumbling sound and this GIANT lady explodes out of the bedroom wondering who in the hell is in her house.

I told her I was a Realtor and that this home was for sale. She was confused. Nobody notified her. She had no idea it was even for sale. Section 8. She asked if she had to move. She was confused and half naked...totally overweight...and you know...she was scared out of her mind. So was I to be honest. Never again will I show properties in this area. My intuition was right and this is a text book case of getting shot while trying to make a living. CRAP

While close to danger, it also sounds like you were a bag of flour from a good time

I think you confused whatever happened to you with the movie you watched last night.

We went with our agent to look at a 4-plex once. The seller's agent said it was all set up. 2 of the units were empty but the other 2 were occupied & tenants instructed to be out for our showing.

One lady opened the door a crack and said she would not let us in & she was not going to move out even if we bought it. The next door we knocked on - like the OP - no answer, knocked a few times, realtor saying REALTOR, used key. A guy was in the living room & said pretty much the same as the other lady. While looking at the empty apartments, we heard a truck leave, so the realtor knocked on his door again - he opened it, was actually armed & said he'd shoot us if we knocked again.

Can you imaging buying that place & having to evict?!?

I've got a couple of good ones, like doing a foreclosure on a 120 year old stone house that was boarded up with no power and basement in a sketchy neighborhood. That's the only time I wanted a gun on a job.

Did a reverse mortgage close out only to find the deceased owner's long term very elderly boyfriend was still living in the house with no place else to go. That was rough. I spent a while there with a man very clearly distraught trying to come up with options for him. I never did another job for that lender. I don't get paid enough to be put in those types of situations.

I called Senior Services for/on two elderly sisters after a home inspection. The place was shockingly bad. To this day I still get pissed at their family for letting them live in a home like that. In 12 years it's easily the worst house I've come across.

There's a reason I take my comp photos on a dead end street on my way out instead of in. Swung around at the end of the block after grabbing a quick house photo only to find the street blocked by a guy with a hand gun. That was a bit "tense." Apparently I wasn't the first appraiser to take a photo of that house that week and he was super paranoid about his ex-wife hiring a PI.

The mid 80's were a hard time for real estate. In Houston, property values plummeted 40+% over a few years. Foreclosures were thru the roof. One subdivision, probably 300-400 homes, every unit had been foreclosed on. Entire subdivision vacant. Did a couple of condo projects in Galveston where every unit had been foreclosed on. We were getting hundreds of foreclosure assignments per month which led to extreme stories about inspections. A few that I remember.

Went to inspect a foreclosure in SW Houston. Supposed to be vacant. Random family living there with no utilities and using a shovel to scrape the wood shingles off the house for heat. They had no food or water. Gave them some money(what little I had) to go to the store.

Went to do an inspection in one of the wards. Door was open and I walk thru to make sure no one was in the house. In the middle of the back bedroom was a lit candle. Next to it was a brick of coke that had been opened, a small scoop and a lot of wax paper squares. 25 or 30 had already been wrapped into some sort of retail amount. Being an East Texas kid and not particularly bright, I took the kilo outside and dumped it in the dirt yard. I put a few of the retail wrappers in my pocket to take back to the office for show and tell. Finished up measuring and taking photos and was on my way. No idea why I was not killed that day.

In those days, relocating oil/gas executives was commonplace and part of their relocation package included the negative equity in their homes. For example, a family paid $3-400M for an executive home along the 1960 corridor, and when relocated it was worth $180-250,000, less realtor fees/closing costs which included $1000s in discount points to be competitive. One wife was so upset with the process. She went upstairs and put on negligee while I was measuring the house. With tears in her eyes, she told me she would do anything to have her home appraise for X. She really did not want to, but that was the level of desperation. Of course I declined, but have never forgot it.

2nd rental I owned was in Port Arthur. Went on a leaky faucet.call and stepped into a house full of sleeping gang bangers all sleeping with AR-15s on them or in reach. And pot stench so thick one could chew it. Living room and bedrooms all had 2-3 sleepy heads armed to the teeth. I was lucky the main gang banger knew me as "the guy that works for the landlord" and we got along okay. I fixed the faucet, got in my truck, called the number on the "we buy ugly houses" flyer I had thrown in the back seat, and swore no more hood houses right then.

jmm said:

---

The mid 80's were a hard time for real estate. In Houston, property values plummeted 40+% over a few years. Foreclosures were thru the roof. One subdivision, probably 300-400 homes, every unit had been foreclosed on. Entire subdivision vacant. Did a couple of condo projects in Galveston where every unit had been foreclosed on. We were getting hundreds of foreclosure assignments per month which led to extreme stories about inspections. A few that I remember.

Went to inspect a foreclosure in SW Houston. Supposed to be vacant. Random family living there with no utilities and using a shovel to scrape the wood shingles off the house for heat. They had no food or water. Gave them some money(what little I had) to go to the store.

Went to do an inspection in one of the wards. Door was open and I walk thru to make sure no one was in the house. In the middle of the back bedroom was a lit candle. Next to it was a brick of coke that had been opened, a small scoop and a lot of wax paper squares. 25 or 30 had already been wrapped into some sort of retail amount. Being an East Texas kid and not particularly bright, I took the kilo outside and dumped it in the dirt yard. I put a few of the retail wrappers in my pocket to take back to the office for show and tell. Finished up measuring and taking photos and was on my way. No idea why I was not killed that day.

In those days, relocating oil/gas executives was commonplace and part of their relocation package included the negative equity in their homes. For example, a family paid $3-400M for an executive home along the 1960 corridor, and when relocated it was worth $180-250,000, less realtor fees/closing costs which included $1000s in discount points to be competitive. One wife was so upset with the process. She went upstairs and put on negligee while I was measuring the house. With tears in her eyes, she told me she would do anything to have her home appraise for X. She really did not want to, but that was the level of desperation. Of course I declined, but have never forgot it.

---

how'd she look?

she was a lonely widow woman (hell-bent to make it on her own)

When I was in college I serviced fire extinguishers for a living. Bryan had several apartments that had a fire extinguisher in every unit. I'd spend several days walking into apartments with maintenance folks trying to find extinguishers which were supposed to be under the sink. It was an eye opening experience seeing how different people live. Tons of gross apartments, the occasional hot woman not wearing much, lots of stinky apartments with cats. The most memorable was one where we announced we were there and find a dude asleep on the couch. He never moved but the maintenance guy just says "he works nights so just tag the extinguisher and let's go so we don't have to come back". I showed up the next day and the maintenance guy says "hey, you remember that dude that was sleeping in unit 512? Yeah.. he was dead!"

Some financial types use M for K. It's confusing so I don't.

I attribute living to dumb luck. Also, I think about this.

It was the mid 80's and there was no internet, cell phones or other means of quick communication. I was there around noon and surprised 2 or 3 workers who scampered out the window. They probably had to run down the street and contact someone higher up the chain. I don't remember seeing anyone on the street or out and about that time of day. It was a very poor area with probably 25% of the homes vacant and vandalized.

I was there maybe 25 minutes from drive up to drive out. Small house, maybe 800 sf and easy to measure. 3 photos outside, 3 inside and I was gone.

I was also carrying very prominently. I was the dumb East Texas kid in a large Houston office. The boss knew I was a gun guy and ended up sending me on all of the sketchy assignments. Got to see all the wards, Montrose(before it was cool and where a guy tried to carjack me but my pistol in his face changed his mind), the Heights, TC Jester were all not popular. Gunpoint(Greenspoint) was just starting to spiral downward. Gulf Freeway was tough and got the t-tops stolen off my car by the time I measured around the exterior of a house. 59 between 610 and the airport exit(no Beltway 8 in those days)was also very depressed.

I carried a 4" Smith .41 Magnum in those days. Worn on an OWB holster. I was always in a tough area and my thought process was that someone might take me for law enforcement and leave me alone. I was 22 and may have not graduated at the top of my class. Very lucky those years.